


Eye of the Beholder

by overunderachiever



Series: Soulmate September 2020 [18]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, I am literally not joking, I stole the idea from another fic idea I had, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, Referenced Bullying, because apparently that's all I write, characters are sympathetic but all have slightly dubious morality, for some spice, ima be real with ya, its called recycling, self-deprecating thoughts, speed run, their first impressions are written on your wrist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:41:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26492800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overunderachiever/pseuds/overunderachiever
Summary: For the longest time the words on his wrist - his soulmate's first impression of him - was one of the only things that kept him going. Then Janus went to college and met Patton and suddenly there seemed to be a whole lot more to live for.
Relationships: Deceit | Janus Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: Soulmate September 2020 [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872199
Comments: 25
Kudos: 150





	Eye of the Beholder

**Author's Note:**

> Btw this has nothing to do with my own personal views on beauty - Janus thinks he's ugly, his soulmate thinks the opposite, that's all there is to it.

_You're beautiful..._

Those were the words that had just appeared on Janus' wrist.

And all he could think was _what a lie._

Janus looked at himself in the mirror and then back down to the words on his skin - his soulmate's first impression of him. Was it possible for your first impressions of someone to be a lie? Wasn't it an involuntary thought?

No, clearly his soulmate was just delusional, and it would make Janus delusional to believe those words.

He looked back up at his reflection in the mirror, at the shape of the burn scar, committed to memory, and the thin scar that ran from the corner of his mouth to his ear. It twisted his mouth into a permanent sneer, and made one eye wild and staring. There was no way he could be considered beautiful. Even if he covered over the left side of his face and tried to imagine what he should look like, he would still be painfully average. Definitely not beautiful.

Janus went to put on a long sleeve shirt and tried to ignore the words.

\-----

In a secluded corner of the school, Janus desperately tried to control his breathing, blinking away tears. He pushed up his sleeved and read the words on his wrist over and over again.

_You're beautiful..._

_You're beautiful..._

_You're beautiful..._

_I'm beautiful. Someone will think so, therefore it must be true._

He tried to ignore the nagging thought that his soulmate might just think that because they only saw the good side of his face, or that his general asshole demeanour would push them away before he even knew they were his soulmate, or they would realise he wasn't beautiful inside either.

He tired to push out the memory of what had happened only a few minutes before, the sound of the jeers, the cold laughter. The other kids were cruel but it wasn't like they were wrong when they called him ugly.

In a secluded corner of the school, Janus curled up tight in a ball and sobbed.

\-----

_Ugh he looks like a goody two shoes..._

Janus rolled his eyes at the guy across the lecture hall who had just raised his hand to answer a question and was practically vibrating in his seat with excitement. He couldn't really see what the guy looked like but he could tell that much. When the professor called on the guy, and he answered the question as if he had swallowed the textbook, Janus knew that impression had been right.

Who seriously came to a college philosophy course with such a can-do attitude? Honestly this kidwas acting like the embodiment of how the professors always said students would have to act if they wanted to succeed.

Janus knew better. He knew the way to succeed was to lie and cheat and bribe your way through life, especially for people like him. Not everyone could get through life with a cute smile and adorable giggle and have the world fall at your feet.

Wait, what was that thought? Janus looked back over at the guy who was still vibrating but now sitting quietly with the goofiest and proudest grin on his face. He leant forwards in his seat to get a better view. Yep, he was cute. Ridiculously so in fact. Well no harm in accepting that you think your most obvious arch nemesis is pretty, so long as you don't act on that until the feeling goes away.

With that decision, Janus turned back to the professor and tried to focus on the lecture.

\-----

Randomly assigned groups for projects should be banned past the first week of lessons, Janus thought. He'd already made friends with the most academically intelligent, and tolerable, people in the class specifically to avoid looking bad on projects, and now this happened. If he was going to get a good grade, he would probably have to do all the work this time. And Janus hated working hard if no-one else was.

With a huff and an eye-roll, he collected his belongings and made his way over to his group's table, reaching for the last remaining chair...and grabbing it at the same time as someone else.

Janus looked up glaring, ready to have a very snarky fight with whoever couldn't be bothered to go get their own chair, and looked straight (gay) into the eyes of his arch-nemesis/crush-of-three-months.

His heart rate did a very good impression of a gunshot in his chest. He couldn't move his eyes away.

After what was probably only two seconds but felt like twenty minutes, Janus suddenly realised there were other people in the room and he currently looked like an idiot. Then he realised that his arch-nemesis was still staring too and for a moment his mind shot to "he likes me" before the crushing realisation that he was probably just freaked out about his face came thundering down on top of him.

Janus sneered.

"Oh so _totally_ not rude to try to steal _my_ chair."

The goody-two-shoes squeaked, mumbled sorry and darted off to grab another chair.

A stab of guilt went through Janus before he quickly told himself he was completely justified in snapping at someone because they were staring at his face, and his arch-nemesis was such a ray of sunshine he was probably immune to being hurt anyway.

Everyone in the group introduced themselves (the sunshine-boy was called Patton and Janus had to try very hard to ignore the fluttering in his chest when he learned his crush's name) and he quickly settled into the familiar routine of trying not to scream whenever anyone did something stupid.

\-----

So it turned out Patton was intelligent and funny as well as insanely adorable, and really Janus couldn't catch a break.

They were in Patton's dorm room, Janus lying on the floor throwing a ball up and down in the air listening to Patton going over his notes out loud where he sat on the bed. Occasionally Janus would chime in with an extra question for Patton, or would answer a question Patton asked him, but for the most part he just wallowed silently in his own repressed feelings.

He wasn't really sure how any of this happened. One day they were sitting on opposite sides of a table with their group doing a project and never speaking to each other directly, and a month later here they were hanging out together almost every day.

And now Patton was Janus' best friend who he was almost definitely falling for.

Technically the title 'best friend' wasn't really saying much because Janus didn't have any other friends, he had potential business associates and an ever increasing list of people who owed him a favour.

Patton was not on that list at all because no matter what Janus had done for him, his occasional-nemesis had never once allowed himself to get in debt. And that sucked. Not because Janus wanted to use Patton, but because it meant he was more street-savvy than Janus thought and that only made him fall for him harder.

Actually, Patton was very similar to Janus in a lot of ways, but for every similarity there were many more differences. Both were very good at getting what they wanted, but while Janus would go about that through playing people off against each other and gradually collecting a large amount of low-level blackmail material, Patton would simply ask nicely with a cutesy smile and a charming giggle that ran rings around people. So while Janus was feared ever so slightly, and generally did not have friends, Patton was well liked and people never suspected him of being manipulative.

Well, maybe manipulative was too strong a word. There was never anything malicious in what Patton wanted, not like Janus wanting someone to help him cheat on an exam so he could blame them later if they got caught, but it was still sneaky.

On the plus side, at least Janus kept his pride.

There were other drawbacks to Patton's tactics too. He was rarely taken seriously, and even Janus was prone to forgetting just how fiercely intelligent he was, and the 'carrot' method wasn't guaranteed to work all the time.

But a combination of Patton's carrot and Janus' stick tactics...now that was a team that could really work. They would be unstoppable!

Janus moved his head to look over at Patton who was staring at his notes with an adorable frown and a pout that really made Janus want to kiss him. And just like that all thoughts of ruthless partnership felt out his head to be replaced by a partnership of a different kind.

His face suddenly heated up when he realised he was wondering what Patton would look like in a wedding suit and tore his eyes away. They weren't even dating for crying out loud! Why was he planning their wedding? God, this man had turned Janus into such a hopeless romantic.

"Hey Janus?"

"Y-" Janus swallowed and tried again, "yeah?"

"Do you remember Diogenes' thoughts on Discussion of First Impressions? My notes on the day we went over that are really awful."

"Well that's _so_ much like you to _not_ have good notes on something. What happened?"

Patton blushed and Janus' heart fluttered. "Ah...well I think I was a little distracted that day..."

Janus was so tempted to push the topic but Patton seemed reluctant to say anything else.

"Diogenes said everyone should always voice their first thoughts the moment they met a new person, because there was no point in just hoping you will happen to find each other. That was one of the days we were on opposing sides because I said it would be efficient and people are unlikely to care if it was something hurtful because they would be so dazed by the fact that they just found their soulmate."

"Oh now I remember! I said that we shouldn't just say our first impressions because if its something hurtful and they aren't your soulmate then people could get really sad. And also that everyone finds their soulmate eventually so its best not to rush fate."

"But if everyone just accepted the fact that first impressions are always inaccurate," Janus argued, remembering something he didn't have time to say the first time they had this debate, "then that wouldn't be a problem. After all, my first impression of you was that you're a goody two shoes but I now know that's wrong, and I'm sure you can understand why I thought that. We have to accept that first impressions are always just some surface-level thought and shouldn't be taken too seriously...Patton?"

The man in question had gone very quiet and though he was facing Janus, his eyes didn't seem to be focussed on the other at all. Janus got a sudden fear that maybe what he'd said really had been hurtful, and he couldn't bear that at all.

But he didn't know what to say.

Then Patton spoke, barely above a whisper. "My first impression of you was that you're beautiful, and you haven't proven me wrong yet."

With a jolt, Janus realised that Patton's gaze was now focused intently on him, eyes locked on his own with a very strange look in them.

_You're beautiful..._

_You're beautiful..._

"You're beautiful." Patton whispered again.

Janus moved as if in a trance, shuffling to the bed and sitting next to Patton. Slowly he unbuttoned his shirt cuff and pushed the sleeve up to reveal those same words on his wrist. He glanced over at Patton who had done the same, showing him the words Janus already knew he would see.

_Ugh he looks like a goody two shoes..._

He tore his eyes from Patton's wrist, to look up at his face. His heart almost stopped at the softness of his expression.

"Oh thank goodness it's you..."

Janus couldn't agree more. "You have no idea how glad I am..."

He leaned closer, just getting a glimpse of Patton doing the same before his eyes fluttered shut and he was pressing his lips softly to Patton's own. It was gentle - oh so achingly gentle and sweet - as if each one was afraid the illusion might shatter if they did the slightest thing wrong.

They broke apart for a moment, still only inches apart, then they were kissing again with all the fire and passion that each had bottled up for so long, pulling each other down onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and desperation.

Janus knew he wasn't conventionally beautiful, by any mainstream definition. But Patton thought he was, and maybe he could start to believe him.

~~*~~

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Let me know what you thought, I love comments!
> 
> I don't know how this spiralled so much. I had this really vague idea that I thought might be 700 words tops and it ended up a pretty decent length. I hope I got the characterisations ok, they're both kinda hard to write.


End file.
